


Arisen

by quietmoon



Series: megop week 2020 [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Canon Continuation, Ghosts, Guilt, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M, Megatron runs away to the edge of the universe and sulks for a couple decades, Suicidal Thoughts, nobody is surprised lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22131706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietmoon/pseuds/quietmoon
Summary: “You aren’t here. You can’t be. You’re only in here.” Megatron taps a claw against his helm. “Nothing but a memory, come to haunt me at the end of all things.”Optimus’ eyebrows draw together before he sighs, a fond smile on his face. “You always had a flare for the dramatic.”Megatron huffs again, and lies back down. “Even as a ghost, you’re a pain in the aft.”
Relationships: Megatron & Soundwave, Megatron/Optimus Prime
Series: megop week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824118
Comments: 41
Kudos: 194
Collections: MegOP Week 2020





	Arisen

**Author's Note:**

> [prompt](https://megop.tumblr.com/post/188937997837/the-results-have-been-calculated-megop-week-will): pre-war & post-war
> 
> happy megop week! \o/ enjoy~  
> 

Megatron begins his day the same way he has every day for the past eight vorns. His subroutines flicker awake as the cave crests the north pole of the moon, their start-up triggered by the light peeking through the condensed carbon crystal. He onlines his optics, leisurely, lazily, and watches for an hour or two as the waxing starlight warms the diamond cliff of his bunker.

The quirks of a longitudinal spin mean that the light arrives long before the sun. The entire moon is formed of carbon in various degrees of compression; the sheer gravitational pressure from the surrounding gas giants — four of them, perilously close to one another as they orbit their parent star — have pushed and pulled the crust for billions of years to an unrecognisable state, and left it with jagged peaks and core-deep ravines. Lots of places to hide away. Megatron appreciates that.

7X-Tri-Pax is a dying star. From space, his analytical processor could see it was burning through its final stores of hydrogen, with supernova on the horizon — closer than appearances might suggest. It’s so far removed from Cybertron, from anything meaningful or central in this galaxy, that the catalogued name itself only revealed its designation in his memory banks after a few cache clearances.

 _Pax._ The perfect place to run away to — to disappear into. Fateful, even. When he realised at first where he’d gone and landed, he wasn’t sure whether he felt fury or... something else. Eventually, he gave up trying to figure it out. Megatron's emotions were never a binary output, anyway; always more trouble to interpret than they were ever worth.

This moon has a lethargic orbit. It takes four vorns as he knows them to complete an entire stellar cycle; and the planetary cycles are five hundred and forty three Earth hours each, enough for a blistering heat to bake the hard rock surface every day. Long before his frame can suffer the effects of such temperatures, Megatron tends to transform and retreat to the cooler caverns splintering off the huge ravine near his chosen cave. But that's only after he has taken his time to lie in the starlight for a hundred Earth hours or so, long enough to allow his solar panels to soak in some much-needed energy. Then, it’s another two or three hundred hours in the ravine far below, before he flies back up in the waning light and watches the sunset from his cave. With such a minimal energy output, he only needs to recharge for perhaps fifty or so hours each day. The rest are passed in the dark before dawn, silent as death.

It’s a slow life. A quiet life. Or, at the bare minimum... at least, it’s... it’s a life.

He has no right to demand any more than that. He has rescinded it.

When he first arrived, he took it upon himself to map out the entire moon. He found nothing of interest — no life, no energon, no fuel or resources of any kind. Just diamond and graphite and rock and dust as far as his optics could see, melding between grey and lavender like amethyst crystals. The deposits are so pure in places that the rock itself turns a bright deep blue, echoing and mirroring and reflecting a thousand times the melancholy light of 7X-Tri-Pax.

It is strange. From space, it looked so barren. But this close, Megatron can see it, that endless complexity, that absurd irregularity than only eons of being torn apart can give something. Purple and steel, overlapping into blue for an astro-klik before falling back into the darkness, round and round and round...

Yes, the day starts out as any other. Megatron lies still and watches as the light refracts in the crystal above him, and allows — perhaps forces? — himself to appreciate the colours waking up and dancing. But when the dawn show is done and he moves to get up, a familiar silhouette stands at the mouth of the cave.

Megatron slows his movement, optics narrowing into a glare.

The glow of familiar blue optics stare back at him through the dim.

“Perhaps I’ve slept in,” Megatron mutters gruffly, finishing the work of heaving himself up.

Optimus Prime glances above at the brightening sky. “No, it does seem to be morning.”

 _Obviously._ He just saw the scrapping sunrise. But the midday heat refracting in the thin atmosphere can sometimes ripple in such a way, reminiscent of ghosts imprinted in the fabric of the universe. This is nothing like that, though. This is no optical illusion or heat glitch. Megatron's spark churns in its chamber.

“You don’t usually visit so early.”

Optimus Prime tilts his head. “Should I leave?”

His tone is cruelly gentle. As gentle as Megatron has ever known, conjuring blurry memories from the recesses of his processor of the dark walls of the Pits of Kaon, of soft blue sparklight and careful servos and a deep, tender voice...

Megatron grunts. He stretches his arms up, claws scraping against the diamond roof as his back struts crack into place. When he lowers his arms, one of his shoulder pauldrons catches painfully on the ridiculous horns of his helm. _That slagger’s blasted helm,_ he thinks bitterly. Without giving himself another moment to think on it, he walks out of the cave, side-stepping Optimus' frame. “Do what you want.”

The morning energy soak is a good time to get some more recharge. As long as he wakes up to the beeping of his chronometer and doesn’t overstay his welcome in the light, it can be relaxing. Almost pleasant.

Megatron wasn’t born with a knack for ignoring his fuel tank gauge but a lifetime’s experience has lent him many a trick to fool his frame into thinking it isn’t starving. And he’s not, not really — not for energy, at least. It won’t be enough eventually, of course, mechs need more than converted solar rays; but energon starvation is slow going, even more so thanks to his finely tuned sensory panels and miner build’s conversion efficiency. He may be converting at a deficit, but it will be a long time before it kills him.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

Megatron’s optics flash to see Optimus leaning over him, expression worried. Almost as if he’d heard his thoughts. Megatron scowls up at him. “What sort of mech wouldn’t be hungry? Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve refueled?”

Useless question. Of course he knows.

Optimus’ eyebrows turn down infinitesimally. In a twisted way, it makes Megatron feel a bit better about it all — that Optimus is upset on his behalf. Let him mourn for poor starving Megatron; he’s the only one who will.

Megatron huffs, and cycles his optics shut once again.

_How did I come to this? Consoling myself with the pity of a ghost?_

Optimus isn’t the only one who likes to visit. He was the first, naturally, but once he’d showed up enough to make his presence a recurring phenomenon, others joined. Soundwave, at first. Then Starscream, that blasted waste of cable. He even caught an earful from that rude yellow upstart who saw fit to kill him ( _twice_ , confound him) — it made Megatron feel nostalgic for the day he ripped out that overactive vocaliser. Sometimes, it’s more than one mech who pops up; Knock Out rarely shows up alone, and when Optimus’ gaggle of underlings come it’s always together, as if even the echoes in Megatron’s mind are afraid to be around him alone.

Good. Let them fear him. It is as it should be.

But of course, Optimus is _the_ regular. He likes to haunt him like a ghost who has nowhere better to be.

“Ghosts aren’t real, of course,” Megatron declares with confidence, glancing across to see Optimus lying beside him, looking absurdly at ease.

The offending mech lifts his head and looks at him inquisitively.

“You aren’t a data echo or a ghost or near anything so substantive,” he continues. It isn’t the first time Megatron has said this, but he likes to revisit the notion, if not to reassure himself then as a last-ditch attempt at sanity. “You aren’t here. You can’t be. You’re only in here.” Megatron taps a claw against his helm. “Nothing but a memory, come to haunt me at the end of all things.”

Optimus’ eyebrows draw together before he sighs, a fond smile on his face. “You always had a flare for the dramatic.”

Megatron huffs again, and lies back down. “Even as a ghost, you’re a pain in the aft.”

The air is still cold from the long night, but it’s very gradually warming, his sensors tell him. He feels a panel flick against his helmet, and scowls, shifting against the cold diamond.

“Let them out,” Optimus says beside him.

“Shut up,” Megatron retorts. When Optimus doesn’t reply, he continues, “It’s nothing to do with you.”

Again, Optimus doesn’t respond.

Megatron waits for a moment, then another, but when no reply appears forthcoming, he sits up with a snarl and wrenches the helm armour clean off his head. His panels fritz at the sudden sensory overload before recovering themselves and fanning out eagerly around him, forming a sort of spiked crown. _What a mockery._ He glares at Optimus, who is still reclined comfortably, watching him with curious optics.

“Happy now?” Megatron snaps.

Optimus’ lips curl up slightly. “I’ve always liked them. You were so shy about it, but…” He leans up, and reaches a tentative servo out. “They suit you so.” His servo pauses a fair distance from Megatron, and Megatron rolls his optics as he lies back down — with more care this time, so as to avoid unnecessary injury to the sensitive panels of his crown.

“Ghosts can’t touch,” he says, giving Optimus a meaningful look, before offlining his optics. “Lie back down.”

There’s a quiet moment, before Optimus replies. “All right.”

Megatron doesn’t hear him lie down; but of course, that makes sense, Optimus being nothing but a figment of his wishful imagination and all. Still, it’s a little jarring to then hear the voice directly to his left, and so much closer.

“What are you thinking?”

Megatron grumbles, “Never you mind.”

“I can make noise when I move, if you wish.”

 _If you know, why did you ask?_ “What difference does it make?”

It takes a while for Optimus to respond. “Your comfort,” he says eventually, in a tone that’s hard for Megatron to read.

He scoffs, lips downturned. “Do not presume to tease me, spectre.”

Optimus chokes on a noise that sounds suspiciously like a laugh. “So _dramatic._ ”

The next hundred hours pass peacefully enough — or as peacefully as they can in the presence of his arch-nemesis, conjured by his mind to torture him. His frame collects the light and he works to keep his processor from thinking too much about anything. It’s difficult, especially with Optimus pointing out the odd crystal and how nicely the light refracts through it, or asking inane questions that cut a little too close.

“How do you like Unicron’s upgrades?”

Megatron grunts. “Why do you ask questions when you know the answers?” When Optimus moves to answer, Megatron cuts him off with a snarl, “You’re in my head. You know before you ask. If I could tear these upgrades from my frame, I would gouge out every strut.”

Optimus’ expression is sombre, which only serves to further infuriate Megatron. _If you’re going to pretend to be here, couldn’t you at least be happy as you do?_ He's seen enough of that expression in his life. He doesn't need to see it here, too, at the end of it.

“Some things are worth saying out loud,” Optimus eventually speaks, cutting through the dark cloud of Megatron’s thoughts.

He frowns. “Perhaps.” Then sighs, and lays his head back. “But my helm aesthetic sense is not one of them.”

It makes Optimus chuckle, part of Orion Pax shining through the weary soldier.

Megatron’s frown eases from his faceplates, and the silence settles around them once more.

The Optimus that comes to him here isn’t the same as the one he knew through the war. He’s... for lack of a better term, cleaned up. Same size, same frame, but more put-together, calmer, almost _lighter_. This version retains that playful spark Megatron first saw in him all those millenia ago in the slums of Cybertron, that quiet joy, but still carries himself with all the dignity of the Prime he fought against since then. It’s as if his mind took Optimus Prime out of the war, desperate to give him some life where Megatron might see him happy like before.

The thought feels unbearably cruel. And yet, it soothes him, seeing this fiction. Like a balm that must burn to heal.

This moon is doing something terrible to his processor.

Suddenly, he wishes he kept his personal data pad. Some things _are_ easier written than thought.

His optics are the same, though. Optimus’ gaze has remained steady from the first moment it met his. That rich, familiar, Iacon blue, a gaze that pierces through all barriers. And then, there it is, flashing across Megatron’s neural net before he can scrap the train of thought — that expression, that passing of _judgement,_ on Optimus’ face the last time Megatron saw him.

He shoots up, gasping.

Alarmed, Optimus does the same. “Megatron? What is it?”

But he hardly hears him, processor whirring under the merciless onslaught of memories. The disappointment in Optimus’ optics, that torn look, the hope, the suspicion, the relief; one little frown and Megatron felt the entire war barrel into him like a high-speed racer. And then, like the fire after the crash, he remembers the nudge against his spark cycles later as he flew through the emptiness of space, the slightest blip of acknowledgement, a feeling he hadn’t known for lifetimes as his conjunx tugged on their sparkbond. Unspeakably joy. Searing hope. And a moment later, in the midst of that elation, a ripping in his spark like his very soul was being torn out of its casing. The silence that followed. A yawning ever-growing nothingness where Optimus Prime was, where he should have been.

Orion Pax may have gone, he may have left Megatron, but he’d never _disappeared_. It was not death. Megatron knows death intimately well to know it was not that.

This... This emptiness... This was somehow worse than his own death.

“Megatron?” Ghost-Optimus’ servos are aflutter as he tries and fails to touch Megatron’s chassis, to offer him any comfort he can.

Megatron knows Optimus Prime is dead. It was a few days after that spark-wrenching that this ghost started haunting him. He tells himself again, a desperate grasp at something to hold him steady: _ghosts aren’t real._

He gets to his pedes, mood utterly soured.

Optimus follows, worrying over him as they walk. He hovers over his shoulder with his servos half-raised as if he could soothe the pain away. “You haven’t converted enough energy yet, you’ll—”

“Leave me alone.” Megatron clenches his fist and glares over his shoulder severely. “ _Leave_ , Prime. There is nothing for you here.” He transforms, and takes to the air.

The flight down is always beautiful, but cold, and harshly steep. It feels more like falling than flying. The sharp crags of the endless ravine cliff loom up fierce as anything in his periphery, and he swerves around them with ease, curling his way down to his favourite midday haunt. His HUD displays warnings about halfway through, indicating that — as Prime pointed out — he hadn’t soaked in enough energy for the day. A painful cramp in his dusty fuel tank punctuates the flashing warnings. He dismisses them without a second thought.

Megatron arrives in his usual ravine without issue, and lands on his pedes heavily. The nook is dim and cool, being sheltered under a large outcropping of graphite.

Optimus is waiting for him down there, arms crossed behind his back. His frame gives off a soft glow. He looks at ease. Megatron catches the mech’s optics and immediately scowls, ignoring him as he goes to fall heavily against the opposite wall. 

Optimus stays where he is, watching him with an expression that is hard to read. He has his faceplate on, the familiarity of it strangely comforting. Megatron scoffs lightly. He hated that thing. Every time he saw it, it only served as a physical reminder of the distance between he and his bonded, the chasm that separated them from one another. But now he looks upon it and is relieved.

With a sudden realisation, Megatron glances up through the endless canyon, and huffs in amusement. When his gaze lowers again, Optimus is sitting beside him. Megatron isn’t sure if the ghost walked or simply appeared there.

“What is it?” Optimus’ expression is curious over the battle mask. At least, Megatron believes it to be.

Instinct screams at Megatron to keep his mouth shut. He grits his dentae together for a nano-klik, before releasing the tension and flopping back against the stone wall. _What difference does it make? He’s not even here. It’s just me, talking to myself._

He gestures up. “Let us say that this canyon is the war. Your underlings on one side, my Decepticons on the other. Is it not suiting, now, for me to be sat in the dark at the very bottom of it...” He starts the sentence as a question, but as the words leave his mouth, the humour seems to evaporate into the air, leaving behind only a bone-deep sadness. His servo lowers to his side uselessly.

Optimus moves to kneel between Megatron’s knees. It would require some manoeuvring if they were both physically present — Megatron’s leg armour is nothing to scoff at, and although Optimus’ frame tapers at the waist, his own blocky legs would likely get in the way, too. But ghost-Optimus does it with ease. Naturally.

A frown is forming on his faceplates even as he invents to speak. Megatron acts without thinking, defences already lowered, and raises his fingers to Optimus’ battle mask.

He’s careful to stop right before he would touch. No need to break the illusion. Optimus doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even look shocked — surprised, perhaps, but Megatron can find no disgust in those optics. Not how he’d surely look if it were really him.

A stray thought flashes across his neural net that this is something illicit, something blasphemous; that he’s taking advantage of Optimus’ memory, somehow, desecrating whatever’s left of him.

Optimus’ blue optics bore into him, honest and open and right _there._

Megatron reminds himself savagely of the ugly truth: there _is_ nothing left of him. There is nothing left to befoul.

A few vents pass between them with Megatron’s servo hovering in the space in between. Then, Optimus leans into the touch he cannot feel, and lowers the battle mask. “I am sorry,” he murmurs, “that we cannot touch.”

“As am I,” Megatron says quietly. He lets his servo skate along Optimus cheek, applying no pressure at all lest his fingers slip through the hallucination and break the spell. Optimus doesn’t move as he goes, watching peacefully as he always does. Megatron’s spark twists in his spark, his fuel tanks clenching with a sudden wish to purge. His optics start to burn until he blinks the fizzling charge away. If he tries hard enough, if he just— _tries_ , he can feel Optimus right there, under his servo. _I miss you_ , chokes his spark, _I have missed you for lifetimes._

“Are you Orion?” The words fall from his mouth suddenly. His servo moves to hover right over the image of Optimus’ neck, and fingers at the delicate cables, imagining he can feel their warmth. “Or the Prime?” The title comes out light. That's a first. It sounds strange in Megatron’s voice, _Prime_ without a deluge of bitterness behind it.

Optimus’ optics glance across Megatron’s features, looking so very sad, and when he speaks, his voice is soft. “I am both, loved one.”

Megatron chokes. _Loved one._ He would call Orion that, when he could, in the most precious of moments. The words are as vulnerable as he has ever been. “That’s mine,” is what he ends up saying, laughing and hurting all at once. “Find your own.”

Optimus optics shine. “Give me the time to, and I will.”

A quirk of Megatron’s lips, gone in a flash. “That is not fair.” _You’re dead, Prime. Don’t you know it?_ “All the time in the universe would be meaningless.”

Optimus’ servos rise and try to grip Megatron’s wrist. They go right through, and both are left staring at the scratched silver metal. An odd noise sounds from Optimus’ vocaliser, something between a laugh and a sob.

It feels like a mockery to try for that echo of physical touch again, after seeing that. So Megatron leans back, dropping his servos to the cold rock. “Are you crying, Prime?” he teases.

Optimus shakes his head, settling back on his heels. Nevertheless, he rubs the back of one servo against his optics.

“Ghosts can’t cry,” Megatron reprimands him softly.

“You’re so—” Their optics meet. “You’re so _lonely_. I wish I could help you.”

Megatron doesn’t even bother to pretend it isn’t true. “I deserve it,” he says instead. “You know I do.”

Optimus is shaking his head. “You—”

But Megatron continues, “Don’t mourn me. It’s the last thing I want to see you hurting for all the mistakes I’ve made. Not now, Prime. I told you, didn’t I? I have lost my taste for inflicting pain.” He leans forward, close enough that if he just tipped his helm forward, their foreheads would touch. “Do not mourn me, loved one. Just be with me here, at the end. That’s already more than I deserve. Just…” He hovers a servo over Optimus’ thigh. It would be warm to the touch. Smooth, and strong. His voice is hoarse. “Just be here.”

Optimus’ optics are shining. That deep sadness is there, Megatron can see it, born of peace and war. _Not Orion, then._ This is no caricature of the past — this is Megatron’s bonded, he who grew with him all these years, fought against him, suffered with him. This is _Optimus_.

“I’m not going anywhere,” the ghost of his enemy whispers, and places a servo over Megatron’s on his thigh. Megatron can almost feel the weight of it. “You have me.”

* * *

Megatron begins his day the same way he has every day for the past twenty-four vorns. His subroutines grind online as his cave crests the north pole of the moon. His optics remain offline as he drowns in the silence. And when it feels like it’s enough to crush him, he sets a timer on his chronometer for an hour’s time, and waits to free himself from the torment.

The energy soak goes on as long as his endurance allows him. Movements lethargic, every step tired and slow, Megatron makes his way to the top of a nearby crest of diamond, and falls heavily to the ground.

Optimus is waiting there, arms crossed over the glass planes of his chest. His frame is polished and healthy; not pristine, but well maintained, well cared for. It pleases Megatron to see — it’s not as if he can say the same for himself, after all. It isn’t hard to find a reflective surface on this moon of gemstone, and the sight is a sorry one. Sun-bleached metal, cracking armour, and glowing red optics that look too bright trapped between all that grey. Energon starvation is catching up to him faster and faster each day.

Megatron is glad of it. In such a state of malnutrition, his frame can’t possibly support all the modifications Unicron forced upon it. One of the horns on the blasted helm cracked vorns ago and fell into the ravine mid-flight, and good riddance to it.

Optimus' disapproving frown deepens when Megatron doesn’t acknowledge him. He looks down at the warlord's prone form, and raises an eyebrow. Megatron only grins up at him playfully. “Don’t nag me, Prime. At least wait until breakfast is finished.”

It doesn’t get a rise out of the mech, but Megatron didn’t expect it to. Optimus doesn’t speak much anymore — he doesn’t have to. His optics say enough.

Megatron’s smile melts into a grimace as he lays his head back and prepares his energy panels, unlocking the helm and letting it slip off with ease. The crest rises around him in a crown, and he reclines to let them soak in what they can.

He doesn’t know how much time passes. Perhaps a few hours. Perhaps a few hundred.

The others don’t visit as often anymore. Starscream used to lecture him constantly, and he still shows up now and then out of the blue, but all he does now is stare at Megatron with judgemental optics for a moment or two, and then mutter, “Still not ready, huh?” And every time when Megatron asks him what the frag that’s supposed to mean, the seeker starts on his age-old performance of being as purposefully infuriating as possible. Picking apart every cracked plate and sunken seam of his frame is a particular favourite. By the Pit, even as a ghost in his own mind, Starscream is fragging unbearable.

The stupiditiy of it all does serve to cheer Megatron up, though, on occasion. How far he has fallen indeed.

Soundwave, on the other hand... It’s hard to communicate with a ghost who won’t speak. Megatron tries not to think about what that means. Soundwave and he mainly communicated via comm lines, but the mech does have a voice, and a veritable galaxy’s worth of recordings through a _war_. He could say whatever he wanted to, if he wanted to. Besides all of that, what does a ghost have to be shy of? No, the Soundwave that visits doesn't even look directly at Megatron, electing instead to stare somewhere to his left, faceplate blank and detached.

Reasons to despise Megatron. To be disgusted. To loathe. To resent. Now, those... Megatron knows. Soundwave has a galaxy’s worth.

His visits are the loneliest of all.

It’s been vorns since anyone but Optimus did show up, though. He has to remind himself more often lately that they aren’t real. That they’re just the results of a strained processor desperate to live, throwing whatever it can at itself to keep it in the running. Perhaps his own ghosts have given up on him. Perhaps his processor is eating up his memory bank storage and their absence is the price.

His spark sputters weakly, curling in on itself. The pain hardly registers.

“You know,” Megatron says says to the air, just to put an end to the silence, “It’s strange, Prime. I’ve started forgetting. When you aren’t here, it almost feels as if I’m not, either.” He onlines his optics but Optimus is gone. Glancing across, Megatron finds him sitting cross-legged beside him, worrying his servos. His optics don’t rise, and Megatron frowns, pushing himself up with difficulty. “I’ve upset you.”

Kneeling in front of Optimus, Megatron tilts his head and raises a servo to ghost along Optimus’ cheek. Optimus’ optics meet his and there is heat in the gaze. Megatron is taken aback.

“Have you given up?” Optimus demands. His voice is not gentle. It is the voice of a warrior bracing for a fight.

Megatron blinks at him. After a moment, he lets his panels reorient themselves towards the sky so that he may remain upright while soaking in energy. “Given up what?”

Optimus’ optics only narrow at him. “You are trying to die.”

“I...” Megatron squints. “Of course I am. Have you missed the last however many vorns I’ve spent on this scrapyard rock? I _came_ here to die, Prime.”

But those blue optics remain steely in their glare. Megatron stands up, and appraises the sight from above. That same gaze follows him, heavy and honest, and he suddenly decides he’s not interested in hearing this after all. Quick as anything, he whips around and begins to walk away.

“Megatron!” he hears from behind, calling after him. To his right, suddenly, Optimus appears, rushing ahead to stand in his way. “You can’t run away forever.”

The scowl on his face feels warm. Familiar. It has been a long time, hasn’t it? A voice in his processor wonders, _how much of yourself have you lost here already?_ “Why are you asking this now?” he snarls, not pausing in his march. He walks right through Optimus’ form and doesn’t feel a thing.

Optimus rounds his left, and stands in his way once again. “Your frame will give out if you continue like this!”

Megatron laughs as he marches ahead. “That’s the idea, Optimus, now you’re getting it!”

“I will not let you die!”

Megatron initiates his transformation sequence, muttering, “Didn’t stop you,” before taking off.

His engines screech as he goes, gears grinding against one another. He hears something in his lumbar region snap and a sharp pain shoots through his left side. He barely manages to right his trajectory before slamming straight into the sheer cliff, cursing as his HUD is flooded with alerts and alarms. He shuts them all down at once, and the resulting eerie silence follows him down to his subterranean nook.

When he transforms and lands, there's another snap, louder than before, and something goes flying off his frame and clattering against the stone. He stares at it, feeling oddly detached, before walking over to inspect. There are no warnings for it on his HUD — they all root from the subroutines he shut down — but he doesn’t need them to diagnose the damage.

It’s part of a transformation cog. Broken off from his frame. _Hmm._

He’s seen starvation before, he’s known it as intimately as a lover. It was his nightly companion in the mines. But even he has never seen it to this degree of disintegration.

“What are you going to do?” Optimus’ says from behind him, sounding somewhere between worried and angry.

Megatron picks up the cog and turns it in his servos with curiosity. Without a functional transformation cog, although it goes without saying, one cannot functionally transform.

“Hmm.”

His time around 7X-Tri-Pax has taught him one dearly useful skill: how to think about nothing. No matter how his spark writhes, his processor jumpstarts, his body breaks down with him trapped inside, simply watching the slow decay, Megatron can avoid the thoughts and think around them with a dancer’s grace.

So his thoughts stall, as he stares at the unassuming part in his servos, out of reflex. Silent.

_Some things are worth saying out loud._

He starts, and glances around, but Optimus is nowhere to be seen. No, that was his own thought, a memory, not the ghost. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell the two apart.

When he looks back at the broken metal, Optimus is standing in front of him, cobalt optics boring into him. “What are you going to do?” he asks again.

What’s the point of running from himself? It’s not as if his bonded is truly here to mourn him. Anything Optimus says is from Megatron himself. He can see it with perfect clarity — there’s nobody to hurt here at the edge of the universe but himself.

The decision is easy once he thinks of it like that.

“I’m going to die, Prime,” Megatron says calmly. “I’m going to starve to death at the bottom of this ravine. Or run out of energy before full disintegration can occur, and fall into shutdown. Who knows? Unicron removed my stasis functionality, so it's a matter of which happens first, really.” He takes a step back, taking a deep vent in. “You were right, some things are better said aloud. I’ve been waiting to say it for vorns.” He glances back up at the sky far, far above. “Or perhaps the star named for you will die, as I’ve been waiting for it to, and I’ll be granted the mercy of a quick death.”

“It’s not… named after me,” comes the quiet reply.

Megatron turns back to his lover and smiles gently. “It might as well be.”

Optimus is shaking, small tremors through his entire frame. Megatron has only seen it once, as Megatronus, after his first and only defeat in the Pits. A miracle they managed to put him back together — Soundwave’s string-pulling can be thanked for that. One of countless debts he can never repay to his oldest friend.

Megatron had held Orion, then, whispering reassurances into his audials as he trembled. He wishes he could do so now. But, more overpoweringly, he is so relieved he cannot; that Optimus is not here to see him like this. Let him be remembered as the vicious warlord, not some repentant blood-soaked runaway. It’s what he deserves.

“Optimus?” Megatron prompts eventually.

Their optics finally meet. Charge crackles in the dim, lubricant gathering at the edges of Optimus' optics. “I don’t want you to die,” he whispers. “I want you to fight.”

It makes Megatron choke on a laugh. “All I’ve ever done is fight! That’s what led me here, loved one. Every spark I stomped out, every perfect thing I’ve crushed in these servos. Every single blasted fight brought me to this place.” He turns to walk slowly out into the open fissure of the canyon, gesturing for the ghost to follow. Optimus falls in step with him, worrying his servos again. That silly anxious habit of his.

But Megatron is glad to see it. The familiarity warms him.

“My past is nothing but bitterness. I don’t have any right to a life, not after what I’ve done. You know this better than anyone, Optimus. My impending death is no tragedy. It is… It is justice.”

Perhaps he’s looking for affirmation. Perhaps, absolution. Maybe he just wants comfort from the one he loves most at the end of a lifetime of suffering, both inflicted and endured.

But Optimus is silent.

“Speak, Prime.”

Optimus shakes his head. Megatron wishes desperately, achingly, that he could touch him.

“Tell me I’m right.”

Silence. Optimus' optics crackle.

“Then tell me I’m wrong, loved one.” Megatron’s eyebrows draw together, lips curling as his gaze drops. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

When he looks up again, the Prime is gone.

And when he starts to laugh, the endless canyon echoes it back.

* * *

Megatron tries not to think.

Once he sat down, getting up suddenly seemed far more trouble than it was worth. A few solar cycles passed in that time — he didn’t bother to count how many. What difference would it make? He could leave the shade, find a patch of light and soak up whatever rays made it down here, but what then? It would be a fraction of the conversion efficiency he was achieving on the moon’s surface, and even that, at this point in his energon starvation, wouldn’t be nearly enough.

He could try to fix his transformation cog, but what then? Fly to the surface and starve to death? Lie under the sun soaking in what meagre energy his frame could steal until the heat scorched his circuits?

He could use the last remainder of his energy and attempt an orbital take-off; use the neighbouring planets’ immense gravitational fields to his advantage and ride out on a pulse of the dying star’s magnetic field. Of course Megatron could do that, he could have done that since the moment he landed. But what then? He’d starve in space even faster than down here simply running his systems at bare minimum to maintain flight. So what difference would it make, starving out there or down here?

He has a miner’s frame. Unicron may have modified and bastardised his body but even the Pit-spawn himself couldn’t take out Megatron's core functionality. In a dire enough situation, his tank might be able to digest mineral deposits, and there’s no shortage of that around — he’s on a moon made of rock and diamond, for Pit’s sake.

But what then? If he could repair himself, if he could find the fuel, if he could throw his disintegrating frame into the cold vacuum of space… What for? Where would he go?

The Decepticons are gone. Cybertron is gone. His friends are likely dead or defected; and those alive would without a doubt no longer accept such a label as ‘friend’ from him. His lover gone; his rival dead; his bonded lost. Everything he held _himself_ to be is _gone_ — But that’s giving himself too much credit, it isn’t gone, it’s... _Because I now know the true meaning of oppression,_ his own voice seems to echo from above the cliffs of diamond, _and have thus lost my taste for inflicting it._

Megatron tries not to think, and he fails spectacularly. Sat at the bottom of a ravine in the middle of fragging nowhere, stewing in his thoughts, missed by nobody, mourned by nothing, full of self-pity and dust and angry system alarms. Reflecting on the fact that his entire existence seems to have been mistake after mistake after mistake. _Things really don’t change,_ he reflects wryly. He might as well have remained D-16. He might as well be that nameless mech again, with just as little to lose, having gained and lost it all in the interim. Irrelevant, forgotten... lost.

Leaning his head back, Megatron closes his optics again. “And the universe would be better off for it.”

“For what, exactly?”

Megatron is too tired to jump in surprise. His gaze slides to the entrance of the overhang where Starscream stands, hip cocked, servos on his waist.

When he doesn’t answer, Starscream repeats the question, voice reedy. “For what? What would the universe—” he waves a servo around, moving towards Megatron “—be better off for? What are you babbling to yourself about? Always spouting those dreary dramatic speeches, for Pit's sake, the only thing you could win an award for is sulking.”

Megatron can only squint at him, expression deadpan. “Curse Primus, why you? Send back Optimus. I’m not willing to die with you as witness.”

It drives a choked laugh from Starscream’s vocaliser. “Then don’t _die_ ,” he scoffs, strutting right up to Megatron’s pedes. It’s the most Megatron can do to glare up at him half-heartedly.

Starscream seems to appraise him. Megatron raises an eyebrow. _Here it comes_ , he thinks suddenly. _That final judgement._ He expected his frame to rattle against the darkness, the promise of death, which naturally Starscream would be the harbinger of — because it’s fragging Starscream, of course it would be — but all he feels is weariness. Regret, and exhaustion, and a strut-deep weariness. His frame offers him nothing more.

“Are you ready yet?” Starscream eventually asks.

He invents. The seams of his chassis creak at the movement, and the moment hangs in the air, impossibly huge. _Don’t mourn me._ He exvents. _Just be here._

“I’m ready,” Megatron says.

Starscream’s grin is blinding. “You had better be. We’ve only got one shot at this.”

Before Megatron can begin to wonder what that means, he hears a familiar ping. Or— _Receives_ — But— Yes, right there, on his primary comm frequency, a ping from his most trusted—

Soundwave steps out from behind Starscream. _Query: Respond,_ Soundwave says.

Megatron stares speechlessly.

“Widen it,” Starscream calls over his shoulder, talking to something Megatron can’t see. “For frag’s sake, widen the field, what are you— Knock Out, don’t make me come—” He throws his servos in the air with an angry sigh. “Must I do everything around here?” Glances back at Megatron. “Stay here, I’ll be right back. Although,” he adds with a smirk, “I’m sure you won’t be going anywhere.” Then, Starscream—

Starscream disappears out of view like he just walked off a screen.

 _Query: Respond_.

Megatron’s optics return to Soundwave’s faceplate. Soundwave is looking right at him. He licks his lips before attempting to speak, voice coming out hoarse. “Soundwave. Ex… Explain.”

_Query: Receiving?_

It rears up on him like a marionette pulling strings, the urge to shout, the urge to rip something apart simply because he can, because he has the strength to and he _wants_ to. And then, like the strings are cut, the impulse falls into background processing along with every other word he threw away over the vorns on this desolate rock. Discarded. Disowned.

“R-Receiving,” Megatron chokes out.

A traitorous fire curls in his spark: that familiar, cursed, beloved ache of _hope_.

Soundwave turns to face the direction Starscream disappeared in, and Megatron hears his own voice sound through the subtle playback of Soundwave’s speakers. “I see him!” It’s a shout of victory, weary and elated and full of trepidation all at once. Megatron has no memory of ever saying it.

Tighter, tighter, the flame blooms in his chest.

“Widen the fragging _field_ , Knock Out!” He hears Starscream’s voice distantly.

“There isn’t enough energy!” Knock Out’s panicked shout sounds even further away. “The Triptych has drained the cells dry already, it won’t hold!”

“For Pit's sake, plug in the tertiary generator!”

A muted _boom_ goes off in the distance, and Knock Out laments, “Well, that _was_ the tertiary generator…”

Soundwave’s fingers are twitching by his side. But for Soundwave of all mech’s to lose his calm exterior, for something to get under _that_ mech’s plating—

Soundwave raises his servo. “Optimus.” A deep resonating voice, summoned from the very Pits of Kaon — Megatron feels his frame flinch as he hears Soundwave’s voice for the first time in millennia. Something is tossed from somewhere Megatron cannot see; Soundwave catches it easily in his long fingers, and Megatron can only watch dumbly as he raises it to his faceplate. Too loud in silence of the cave, his faceplate unlocks.

It’s like something out of a dream.

Golden optics find Megatron’s, and he can’t help it, it’s instinctual, it’s _reflex—_ He flinches again.

Soundwave’s optics hold nothing but kindness. Megatron wants to swear against it, he wants to turn away, but he can see it plain in that astro-klik they made eye contact, in his oldest friend’s gaze: Megatron only finds acceptance.

 _Forgiveness_ , his glitched processor supplies desperately. It wants to live, so so badly.

Megatron wants to live.

Soundwave slots the thing in his hand over his optics — a mask, now Megatron can see, made of no material he recognises — and his servo falls to his side, limp.

He hears a few different voices cry out in alarm, but he doesn’t have the processor space to discern who, because at the very same moment the whole world subverts itself. No longer is he lying decrepit at the bottom of a canyon, hiding from 7X-Tri-Pax under a pathetic overhang of rock. He is in a laboratory. He is in the _Nemesis_ laboratory. Starscream and Knock Out stand at the helm of some absurd contraption, staring back at him. Shockwave’s optic is focused on the machine, tapping away furiously at the controls. Soundwave is stood motionless as before, but not on the other side of the cave, but rather in the Nemesis, near the berth on which Megatron’s corpse once lay. And running in front of Soundwave, towards him, optics _blazing_ —

His thoughts stutter to a stop, error messages from his logic circuits overlapping on his HUD.

Optimus Prime falls to his knees before Megatron and throws his arms around his shoulders. And Megatron _feels_ it.

For a moment, the noise and the touch is all he can think of. The thrum of the engines, heavy and comforting. Shockwave’s digits tapping away as fast as they ever have. Optimus’ ragged vents against his helm.

Megatron resets his optics, but the Nemesis remains. _Ah._ He swallows to clear his vocaliser. “I see. I have offlined.”

He catches Starscream over Optimus’ shoulder rolling his eyes. But his expression is relieved. His smile is utterly relieved.

Optimus pulls back, shaking his head and laughing breathlessly, “No, no, you haven’t, you haven’t. No such thing, loved one. You’re here. You’re with me. You are here.”

Megatron has no idea what expression he must be wearing. “At the end of things,” he whispers, optics glued to Optimus’.

Again, he shakes his head. “No, Megatron, no.” His hold tightens. “No.”

“Then... how?” Shakily, Megatron raises his servo to touch the mech holding him, and _Primus,_ is it a thousand times the usual effort to do so. But when his servo meets his bonded’s frame, it slips right through as through light. Alarmed, he finds Optimus’ optics once again. “What, then?”

Optimus is frowning at Megatron’s hand, but his attention returns at the question. “I needed to tell you,” he says in the voice of a Prime, “that you are _wrong_.”

Megatron opens his mouth to speak, and shuts it again immediately.

“You are wrong,” Optimus repeats.

“Prime...” Starscream interrupts, sounding nervous. “Hurry it up, would you?” When Megatron glances at him, the seeker isn’t looking at him; his attention is focused on Soundwave, who has not moved an inch since putting on the mask.

Optimus’ gaze follows the same track, and he nods. “Yes. I— Yes.” He turns back to Megatron, whose frown is entering levels of incredulity previously unexplored. “I’m sorry,” Optimus says, “but there simply isn’t time to be subtle. Soundwave! Show him. Show him what he needs to see.”

Almost before the words leave his lips, the world starts moving again as Megatron — and Optimus hanging onto him — are seemingly thrust forward in space. Megatron lets out a cry of alarm, but Optimus’ hold on him doesn’t waver. “I’m sorry,” he whispers against Megatron’s shoulder, “I know how confusing this must be.”

Megatron shakes his head. He can’t get his vocaliser to work. _I was ready to die five kliks ago. Now I’m desperate not to and powerless to stop it._ How does one say that without sounding weak?

Optimus servo squeezes his. Megatron tries to squeeze back, and meets no resistance as his servos slip through Optimus’ frame again.

They shoot through the solid walls of the Nemesis, leaving behind no trace of their path, and enter the vacuum of space surrounding the ship. Megatron can’t feel it, not the cold, not the pressure — but that needn’t be something supernatural, it might just be system failure for him at this point.

“Megatron,” Optimus whispers, “turn around. Look down.”

Megatron narrows his optics at him. _What are you planning, Prime?_ The thought is immediate, pure habit. Then, following instructions, he turns around. He looks down.

“You told me that your death was justice,” Optimus murmurs. “That the price to pay for your crimes was running away from your fight. But you were wrong, Megatron.”

Below him sprawls _home_. Jutting towers and core-deep ravines, each inlaid with a hundred-thousand buildings, each shining with a thousand-million lights. The metallic planes stretch over the northern pole, fragmenting into the individual specks that come together to form one of the megacities. The last time he saw it, it was choked with the fumes and smoke of war. Fires burned across its surface. Megatron watched it die — _no_ , his spark hisses, _I watched it choke to death in my servos_. But here, below him, Cybertron breathes. Cybertron lives.

“This is justice,” Optimus murmurs. “This is the price, Megatron.”

He can’t speak. He cannot say a word.

“We’re burdened with life spans longer than some entire species get to survive. We’re blessed with frames that can endure anything our sparks can.” Megatron feels the warm plating of Optimus helm as he leans against Megatron’s back. “You must live, loved one. You must endure. You _must_ fight.”

“Y-You’ve seen what happens when I fight...” The words escape before he can think. “I murder all I touch, Prime.”

But Optimus is shaking his head, still hiding against Megatron’s shoulder blades. “That isn’t true. There are more ways to achieve justice than violence. Ways to fight with words rather than fists.”

Megatron barks out a laugh. “Violence is all I know, Optimus. Violence is all I _am_.”

Suddenly, the world begins to slip past them again, as they race through darkness and light and space and time. Megatron couldn’t look away if he wanted to, optics drinking in the absurdity with greed. Behind him, Optimus gasps.

They arrive within the passing of a sparkthrum, looking out across a familiar view. The dim, the damp, the fumes: this is the miserable underground refueling pod of D-16’s mining cluster. And there he stands in the centre, the miner Megatron once was, with his drilling arm — his fusion cannon arm — outstretched. He gestures as he speaks enthusiastically to a crowd of five. Megatron cannot make out the words, but he remembers them. He remembers them vividly. A pain as visceral as any he’s known cuts through his spark at the thought. _How far I strayed..._

“What is this?” he says hoarsely.

Optimus sounds similarly stunned. “I… Soundwave. It must be Soundwave.” Megatron turns to give Optimus a quizzical look, but Optimus’ optics are focused on the miner and his speech, impossibly soft. “See?” he prompts. Nudging Megatron, he nods down there. Megatron acquiesces and forces himself to look down again.

Three of the mechs are walking away, one throwing the miner a rude gesture as she goes. But two stay and listen.

“You are so much more than the violence that made you. You _are_ the fight — you were born of it, you’ve lived it more than any mech I’ve ever seen, you embody the essence of it — but that needn’t mean destruction, Megatron. Can’t you see?”

And again, flying forward before his code can compute it, they arrive, this time looking out across a throng of hundreds of mechs, all crowded round a raised stand. Megatronus the gladiator is perched atop it with Soundwave at his side, speaking to the mass of gathered mechs with steely optics and a serious frown.

Optimus hugs him from behind. Megatron can feel the tremble in his frame. “You must fight, Megatron, even if it is all you know. You cannot run away.”

To look upon the scene is torture. Every mech he sees is another stab against his very core, a reminder of all those he failed, of the dream he destroyed with his own hubris. How did he go from the one he sees below him, promising freedom and meaning every word, to a warlord determined to spread his tyranny throughout the galaxy? How can such a dichotomy exist within the one same spark?

Could he have ever been good in the first place, if this is where it has led him?

Megatron turns his back on the scene and faces Optimus. “I've had enough,” he says lowly. “Tell me who you are.”

Something in Optimus’ expression breaks. “I am who I’ve always been. I am Optimus Prime.” He leans forward and knocks his forehead against Megatron’s. “I am Orion Pax. I am your bonded.”

“You’re dead,” Megatron snaps.

Optimus only smiles. “So were you. Twice.”

“Never wholly. Never completely. Optimus, I felt your spark sputter out — I felt our sparkbond tear apart,” he hisses. “Do not presume to mock—”

“—mock me, spectre,” Optimus cuts him off. Megatron resets his optics, taken aback. The smile on the Prime’s face is breathtakingly fond. “You’re so dramatic.”

Megatron wants to throttle him. “You’re so fragging _vague._ For once in your cursed blighted existence, can you say what you fragging mean?”

He could almost roll his eyes when instead of an answer, all he gets is the world zooming past again. He cycles his optics and growls under his breath, keeping them closed even once he feels the momentum cease.

Optimus hears his snarl. “Feeling more yourself again?”

“Tell me, Prime, can I kill an already-dead mech? I am tempted to see for myself.”

Optimus huffs out a laugh. “Don’t talk like that.”

“I have wasted away on a dead moon for the better part of three deca-cycles. Trying to die. I am _tired._ ” He wishes he could push Optimus off. He wishes he could just _touch_ him. Megatron onlines his optics to glare at the mech in front of him. “Enough of these games. Tell me once and for all, Prime. What is this?”

He can see now that they're in space again. Optimus’ gaze flicks between Cyberton below and Megatron’s optics. He sighs. “Do you still want to die?”

Megatron cycles his optics. “That is not what I expected you to say.”

“Well, do you?”

Megatron almost answers with a snarky insult before he stops himself. _Do I?_ He thinks of that immediate burn of hope in his chest the moment he saw his soldiers; he thinks of the hollowness of his laughter echoing back at him against the walls of a stranded twisted moon; he thinks of Optimus' servo, warm on his own, and the violent desperation that overtook his every circuit at the feel of it. _I want to live,_ his spark begs again. _I want to live._ “I want...”

Optimus’ gaze doesn’t waver. Those Pit-spawned optics, bright and blue and honest and gentle and seeing as deep into his core as Megatron goes...

He grits his dentae. “Ghosts aren’t real,” he snarls.

Optimus smiles, and shakes his head. “Ghosts aren’t real.”

“You’re not dead.”

“I’m not dead.”

“You’re... from a different dimension?” Megatron squints.

Optimus raises an eyebrow, tilting his head.

 _No, of course not. Primus forbid it ever be that easy._ “Alright,” Megatron scowls, “so you’re from the future beaming back to return my will to live. Wonderful. I’ll have your head the moment I lay optics on you. No, don’t give me that, you have seen _far_ more than I have ever willingly revealed and now I am compromised—” He pauses mid-tirade, and balks. “ _Starscream_ saw. I’m—” He glances around blankly for the Nemesis and sees it parked far off in the orbit of Cybertron. “Oh, there will be _words!”_

But Optimus is chuckling. “There he is,” he says quietly, more to himself than Megatron, but at the look he gets for that the amusement melts away into something seering and soft. “That’s the mech I gave my spark to, all those vorns ago. Do you see him, loved one?” A servo rises and traces gently against Megatron’s cheek. “There he is.”

The gentleness brings Megatron back to reality with a strut-chilling clarity. He stares down at Cybertron below. “This is... the future?”

Optimus shrugs. “Yes. At least, I believe so. Soundwave had to use the Triptych Mask himself—”

“The what?” Megatron whips around. “The _what?_ ”

“The—”

“The Onyx Triptych!? Why can Soundwave operate a relic of the Primes?”

Optimus’ eyebrows draw together. “We’re... still working on that.” He seems to shake himself. “Anyway, there isn’t time, every moment spent here is draining his spark energy—”

“His _what!?”_ Megatron shouts.

“Megatron!” Optimus’ lips are downturned. “Soundwave is pouring himself into the Triptych Mask so that we may use it to speak with you!”

“But— How— _Why_?” Megatron arrives at the question, aghast.

“Oh, for Primus’—” Optimus rolls his eyes, and Megatron’s spark squeezes. It was one thing to see Orion’s mannerisms when it was through what he thought to be a hallucinatory ghost his mind conjured up to grant his tormented spark some mercy, but to see it in Optimus, what he knows to be the true Optimus, _his_ Optimus... Who is currently glaring at him, markedly unimpressed. “Because we didn’t want you to die, you fool. Why else?”

He opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again. “But... Starscream—”

“ _Yes_ , even Starscream!” Their roles seem quite reversed now, with frustration and nerves rising in Optimus instead. “We knew you had to see there was hope, that there was some returning from everything that had been done. I knew from that moment after Unicron... I...” He struggles for words. "All these years, I wished..."

“Why didn’t you say something earlier? On 7X-Tri-Pax's moon?” Then, angrily, Megatron snarls, “It’s been vorns!”

“I wanted to! I wanted to, desperately!” Prime's hands drop from his shoulders. Megatron had forgotten they were even there, but the absence is keenly felt. “But you told me you weren’t ready yet, that we had to wait until—” He cuts off abruptly, expression freezing. His mouth snaps shut.

Megatron reels. “I-I’m... We’re... Prime, don’t tell me I’m— that we are—”

Optimus slaps a servo over Megatron’s face.

Megatron growls in reflex, spiked dentae fully prepared to bite down on the softer metal of his palm.

“No more,” Optimus pleads. “Please, I fear I’ve already said too much. Don’t ask me things I can’t tell you yet.”

“But—” Megatron says, muffled against the other’s palm. _How did you know where to find me?_ Why would he willingly tell anyone of these years spent in exile? Starving himself, waiting on a dead rock to turn to dust? There's just no way, no matter how badly his spark wants to stay alive, for him to have stooped that low.

“You’ll see for yourself,” Optimus says, eyes beseeching. “We don’t know how the relic works, for all we know this might destroy—”

Megatron tries to pull the servo down and his hand goes straight through Optimus’ arm. Scowling, he tries again and again until Optimus relents and lowers it out of pity. “Why the pit can’t I touch you?”

Optimus shakes his head. “I don’t know, we don’t know! It’s a new relic, we just found it in the Kaonian caverns last vorn—”

Suddenly, there’s a flicker. It isn’t in Optimus, or Megatron’s vision, but in the world itself — as if reality blinked for a moment.

Optimus looks around, growing dread on his features. “Soundwave must be reaching his limit,” he whispers. “We haven’t much more time.”

Panic begins to burst like thorns through Megatron’s neural relay. “But— I still don’t know what— Prime, I—”

Optimus takes his face in both his servos. “Stop.”

Megatron shuts his mouth. His optics burn. _I don’t want to go back to that lonely dead place. I don’t want to leave you. Not when I’ve only just gotten you back for real._ “Don’t send me back, Prime. Don't you fragging dare. Not when—" _When I know you're here, a universe away, an age away._

Optimus is shaking his head again. He does that too much. “You’ll see me again. I promise, we’ll meet again. But you have to live, Megatron. You have to fight. You mustn't run away.” He turns them both so that they can look down at Cybertron below them, golden light spilling up from the world in a halo. “You see? You have so much to live for, still. This isn’t where it ends for you. This is your future. This is the price you pay for everything you’ve done, everything— everything _we’ve_ done. This is how we... we start to make up for it.” A terrible smile graces Optimus’ face, beautiful and sad and honest. Megatron believes him, and it feels as if his spark is tearing in two all over again, hope and guilt twisting as one. "Justice for you is seeing your dream realised, Megatron. A free home for our people. Free for all of us. Living in the light.”

Reality flickers again around them, stronger than before. Static starts to creep into Megatron's audials, and his optics burn. “Where does one start, Prime?" he whispers raggedly. "In so much darkness?”

The world blends around them. For a moment, Megatron thinks Soundwave has reached his limit, whatever that means, but then he recognises the way the light blurs.

He’s back on the moon of 7X-Tri-Pax. Except not quite. The colours of the rock, the lavender of the diamond, the steely grey of the graphite, it’s muted as if the waves of light can’t quite make it through. He sees his own body, looking dead for all appearances. His optics are offline, his plating dim, chassis cracked, one of those ridiculous Unicronian horns broken off. And in full colour, sitting beside him with his helm tucked between his legs, long arms shielding himself from the world, is Soundwave.

_Ghosts aren’t real._

Soundwave glances up, as if hearing something. His faceplate seems to lock onto Megatron, and he freezes. _Can he see me?_ Megatron stares right back, spark thrumming violently.

The world flickers.

Megatron onlines his optics. He sees the wall where he stood a nano-klik before, made of graphite and diamond. He gasps, processor aching, as the pain seeps back into his system in a deluge of sensory overload. The recharge must have knocked his temporary settings out, all of the warnings flash across his HUD as his frame falls apart and he _feels_ it.

Groaning, Megatron leans his helm back. Then, as consciousness properly returns to him, he whips his head to the left, optics feverish in their search for a sign of his right-hand bot, his oldest friend, his most trusted...

Beside him, the air is empty. The world remains silent.

He stares.

 _Live in the light_ , Optimus Prime had demanded of him.

_Where does one start, in all that darkness?_

“Shadowzone,” Megatron whispers, optics cycling. _Of course._

The air is still. To any trained eye, Megatron knows, he appears well and truly alone.

He starts chuckling to himself. “How did they find me, indeed... You knew all along, didn’t you?” He shakes his head, processor spinning but laughing louder for it. “You really have seen the ugliest of me, old friend.”

Transformation cogs can be replaced. Miner frames can synthesise energon from rock — not much, but enough. Gravitational fields can assist in take-off. Everything he needs is right here, at his fingertips. He has made more of less.

Wincing, Megatron pushes himself off of the ground. It takes more than a few kliks, his entire frame screaming at him to stop, that it’s too late, to just give up already, to lie down and let his life sputter out. His spark, on the other hand, is positively sparkling within his chamber, spinning on every axis. _I want to live,_ it begs. _I want to live. I want to fight._

Leaning heavily against the rock wall, Megatron places a servo over his chest, and feels his life thrum beneath the armour. “The fight goes on,” he mutters.

**Author's Note:**

> edit: [here](https://quietmoon.dreamwidth.org/12176.html) is a tiny playlist and some meta i wrote for anyone interested.


End file.
